WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY MEXICO News Journal Update - (en) Sicilia Libertaria 2-24: Relativism: Legal rebels: the Zapatista case in Mexico (4) (ca, de, it, pt, tr) [machine translation]

The research path that led me from Italy to Bolivia and then, among
other nations, to Mexico, chasing the traces of a possible legal
pluralism within societies with indigenous populations, nations with
their own languages, cultures and norms, finally arrives , in Chiapas,
where the rebellion of a people has produced spaces of self-managed
freedom, without fetishizing the past and looking to the future. Some
essential facts: In 1994, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, organized
indigenous groups rebelled against the domination and control of the
Mexican state, creating a local resistance movement and also inspiring
other indigenous groups to organize themselves. As Subcomandante Marcos
declared, it was not about the seizure of power, but "just something
more difficult: a new world". Thirty years later, the Lacandon region
has seen the development of new forms of sociality, based largely on
indigenous tradition, including the organization of its own forms of
administering justice. All this was possible, thanks to multiple
strategies of struggle and communication, managing to have the support
of part of the non-indigenous Mexican population and, even more, in the
Western world, especially the one that saw in the Zapatista struggle, an
example to follow . One of the most important characteristics of the
social and political system that has been built over the last thirty
years concerns the management of power, which tends to be horizontal,
where those in charge of managing public life, who hold office for three
years, do not decide but, in as representatives, they carry out the
decisions that the local community has taken and whose execution they
control: "Command by obeying" is the key rule of this system.

The complete exclusion of the state from community life, sometimes even
defended with weapons, was the condition for the production of a new
model of society, even if it was not easy, given that the original
indigenous societies were transformed over the centuries of colonial and
republican domination, so much so that current cultures are the result
of mixtures and syncretisms, of impositions but also of resistance and
appropriations of foreign cultural elements implanted, more or less
consciously, on the fabric of traditional cultures, managing to largely
maintain part of their basic identities, languages and cultures. For
this reason, when thinking about the future, the Zapatistas found
themselves in need of producing alternative management models which,
without betraying the past, could be used to manage the new realities.
The contribution of subcomandante Marcos in this process is undeniable,
as he personified the different utopian traditions, both indigenous and
libertarian-derived.

As regards the administration of justice, the Zapatista system that has
been refined during these thirty years is structured into three
overlapping levels of internal functioning, even if it is open to
comparison and even clash with the Mexican national system. The most
basic level concerns minor crimes, such as thefts or offenses, arguments
between neighbors and even between spouses, scandalous drunks, etc. The
elected municipal authorities are in charge of these problems, even if,
in complicated cases, the municipal assembly is used, which
fundamentally defends the good functioning of the life of the local
community. Problems are not always resolved satisfactorily by the
assembly, so a specifically appointed Honor and Justice Commission may
be called upon. This is also used when problems involve more than one
community, even if the last instance is represented by the Good
Government Council, the general organization of the communities. This is
the level that also deals with cases involving non-Zapatista individuals
or other political organizations and, of course, the non-indigenous
government of the region (political issues, active conflicts and land
disputes). Finally, it is important to highlight that, when it comes to
domestic problems or problems that, in general, involve women, these are
dealt with only by the women who make up the various justice bodies.

  In general, the function that these institutions perform is to mediate
conflicts, pushing the actors involved to reach an agreement on
disputes. If convicted, the penalties are rarely imprisonment and, in
these cases, it involves an open room or hut for the few days of
punishment. In most cases the punishment consists of work to be done for
the community or paying a quantity of money to compensate those who were
the victim of the transgressive action. Even in the case of being
sentenced to long periods of community work, if necessary, the condemned
person is allowed to return to their fields so as not to harm their
family. Even if it seems secondary, it should be noted that all these
proceedings are carried out in the local indigenous language, this being
one of the major problems that indigenous people face when they end up,
with or without reason, in the national justice system. And it is free,
another important element, given that, as in many countries, it is the
poor who mostly end up in state prisons. Finally, the difference between
the state system of justice and the Zapatista system is so evident that,
often, even non-indigenous peasants turn to the latter, obtaining, in
cases where the state system intervenes or is already intervening,
support and assistance. , particularly when they fall victim to state or
regional police. The reference to the Mexican police is necessary,
considering that they are historically violent bodies and symbols of
state repression for the poorest social and ethnic sectors of the
population. In fact, a struggle to limit their powers has been underway
for years in all indigenous territories. In Chiapas it has literally
been abolished, replaced by indigenous "patrols" of community members
who provide this service in a voluntary and rotating manner.

Evidently, all this was possible thanks to the political conquests that
the Zapatistas carried out, managing to maintain their territory and
ensuring that the state ended, certainly not with enthusiasm, by
recognizing the value of their autonomous legal system. This condition
of autonomy, also defended with weapons, proves necessary to be able to
produce and maintain one's own rules of coexistence, as the Syrian case
of Rojava has also demonstrated. These cases show us that the struggle
for legal and, in general, political and social autonomy is also
possible in the face of the state, which can be bent to accept
differences, clearly group and not individual; while in regional or
municipal terms, once a sufficient degree of autonomy has been achieved,
this possibility would be an anthropological contradiction, given that
every social structure, even new and libertarian ones, needs a minimum
of cohesion and common rules.

(For further information: Rebrii, Anne (2020): "Zapatistas: lessons of
community auto-organisation" (https://www.opendemocracy.net);
Gasparello, Giovanna (2017): "Nuestra justicia es la alegría del
corazón. Justicias indigenous and intercultural people in southern
Mexico". Revista de Paz y Conflictos, X-2: 143-164).

Emanuele Amodio

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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